For Inferno Magics I'll admit that I kept them as an old hold over from the previous Blood Act under Warden's rule. They were basically suppose to symbolize how a demonic essence can corrupt everything, even the archanite itself. But as CQBexpt said, removing Inferno Magics will change Demonomancy, at least at a master level. After all one cannot actually access Inferno Magic without the aid of a Demon, and one cannot master it without Falling, a risky price to pay to master the magic of demons. That being said, I can concede that Inferno Magics is essentially "Demon Archanite" and will have much, much more power if one was actually in the Inferno. Because then you can manipulate everything in there.
So Inferno Magic needs revamping, and I'll be sure to discuss it with Fallen, Rtron, and anyone else who is concerned about using Demonomancy. That means you CQBexpt.
As for Herbmancy I've actually did a revision of it some time ago, I'm not sure if Fallen had posted the revised version. Here it is for those curious.
For Psychomancy, I will make this much clear: The intent of Psychomancy, and indeed the intent all Mage Bloods should do (But Psychomancy does better at unfortunately), is to be an unconventional offense, while at the same time lacking any hard defense against other magics aside from "Getting out of the way". And Psychomancy does nothing to provide additional mobility unlike say, Geomancy (Tunneling) or Aeromancy (Flying). While there is no "Ultimate defense" against all magics, one could see how perhaps a strong earthen barrier would at least be able to repel most attacks. But Psychomancy isn't a physical attack, and so a wall of stone would do nothing to it aside from block one's field of view, which at least removes the sight requirement.
Psychomancy lack any direct damage dealing at the beginning compared to some magics, as even Herbamancy could manipulate plants into strangling you. At the beginning Psychomancy can only fool and trick you, and the act of harming either comes from your misdirection or your active involvement. But at the end of Mastery, Psychomancy indeed does do a lot of damage, and generally without even making physical contact (Because Psychomancy never does physical contact). More so since unlike say, Pyromancy or even Demonomancy, one can't shrug off Psychomancy by being physically stronger.
Now Wards can indeed be picked up by those without Psychomancy, even nonmages. The only trouble is that they are not naturally occurring defenses except by those who have to deal with Psychomancy. Which yes, typically means psychomancers themselves. Now Free I understand that you're concerned that this essentially means that unless one is an actual psychomancer, there isn't a different way to counter or resist the effects of psychomancy. It gives Psychomancer the ultimate offense since no other magic would have any reason to develop wards except to counter Psychomancy. Fallen's suggestions at least provide some caveats: A psychomancer needs line of sight, and there's a reason why I wrote a large section for Wide and Focused concentrations. Wide is more "Weak AoE" while Focus is "Single-Hit Nuke".
But another issue with psychomancy is this: What other sort of defenses do you think would make sense against a Psychomancer? How does one measure "Will Power", if that's going to be a factor? What sort of materials should be naturally resistant against a Psychomancer's attack, and what prevents this same material from making one immune? I offered tin foil hats, and as silly as it sounds, they at least drop a hint of Psychic deflecting materials.
But perhaps you're asking for less material things. Again, what would you suggest being a viable, believable source of defense against Psychomancy? As it stands, it's not until at higher levels that one could Dominate the minds of other into controlling them directly, and tricking the enemy into say, running off a cliff or attacking their friend is pretty much the only way Psychomancy gets anything done without requiring the mage to do it themselves.
There is a much bigger problem that you're overlooking here. The idea that Psychomancy does 'less damage' is only technically accurate. Sure, psychomancy doesn't actually do any direct damage, but that's not the issue. Psychomancy wrecks people on a completely different level, because it
takes them out of the fight. Let's say I trick the guy into thinking I'm somewhere else, right? A simple thing, SURELY not equal to a wizard hurling a boulder at him? Well, now that I've done that, I simply walk around and stab him in the back. No dramatic fight, no defense, he's down, I win. If I were the boulder guy, he could have dodged. After all, how can you fight someone like that? It's totally impossible. And since he doesn't have the special training (Didn't go to the college) I can do that to him with complete impunity, since no natural defense to Psychomancy actually exists. THere's no projectile to avoid, no time for magic to take effect, and no delay between cast and effect. Meanwhile, it isn't that taxing on blood, either. The boulder guy is coughing and wheezing, and I'm perfectly fine after that simple illusion. To repeatedly say that Psychomancy is 'just fine' leads me to conclude that you are only doing so because you have Psychomancer characters. And before you ask, I was planning on weakening Electromancy slightly.
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Keep in mind, Free, one of the main aspects of blood magic is trust. I don't want to over limit players but I also don't want to give free reins. Both aspects can kill balance and like Elite said, overbalance can hurt the effectiveness of a Player's magic. It can also make them feel like we don't Trust them to be sensible or want to 'script' them into a fix set of actions for a spell, both aspects are very negative to a Player's confidence as I'm sure you know.
In addition, and this is to all Players, while we've asked your suggestions and thoughts, we might not be able to incorporate them all. In end, we will pick and chose ideas/thoughts/suggestions based on how we, as GMs, believe it will best suit the RP. Either way, we thank you for the feed back.
In my years of experience with tabletop gaming let me tell you this: 'Overbalance' is the complaint of one annoyed that an exploit he had been using no longer works. Let me tell you what's hurtful. Ssarak can functionally do everything Alaira can do except 'Lightning explosion' (which I've only done once), and unlike Alaira there are no heavy penalties or costs. He is an extremely skilled combatant, He can fly, he can disable opponents at range with Psychomancy, which is like lightning but he cannot miss.
In combat my character is basically useless in comparison since five or six lightning bolts is nowhere NEAR as useful and he's just as potent physically.
I don't see electromancy and pyromancy as being too similar, as kinetic energy and electromagnetism are entirely different. If you start thinking about the potential applications of electromagnetism, I'm sure you can think of plenty of ways to differentiate it.
They are too similar at present in how they perform, both of them are simply ranged elemental damage. It makes sense to differentiate combat for electromancy by emphasizing quick, short-ranged combat.
Obviously the two things are quite different out of combat, but everybody knows that. Also, lighting bolts are hot plasma, so hell yeah they cause burns.
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